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NCLD Mission Statement
The National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) works to ensure that the nation's 15 million children, adolescents, and adults with learning disabilities have every opportunity to succeed in school, work, and life. NCLD provides essential information to parents, professionals, and individuals with learning disabilities (LD), promotes research and programs to foster effective learning, and advocates for policies to protect and strengthen educational rights and opportunities.
NCLD History
NCLD, formerly the Foundation for Children with Learning Disabilities, was established in 1977. For more than 25 years, NCLD has focused its efforts on educational, public awareness, and advocacy activities for children and adults with LD. In 2000, responding to the changing needs of its constituents, NCLD added new national and international objectives aimed at promoting early identification of and intervention for children with LD and driving research-based strategies into the nation's classrooms. In addition to its New York office, NCLD operates a public policy office in Washington, DC, and works closely with policy makers, their staffs, federal agencies, and other national organizations to ensure that the specific needs of people with LD are fully considered in the development of national policies and legislation.
NCLD Board of Directors
The NCLD Board of Directors is comprised of parents of children with learning disabilities and accomplished individuals who have learning disabilities themselves. The board is responsible for long-range strategic planning and for developing the organization's policies and procedures.
NCLD Professional Advisory Board
NCLD's Professional Advisory Board is comprised of leading educators, psychologists, researchers, physicians, and advocates who guide NCLD program activity and advise the staff and Board of Directors on educational needs, program opportunities, public policy development, and strategic planning.
Recent Accomplishments
NCLD published "A Parent's Guide to No Child Left Behind," the first guide specifically for parents of children with learning disabilities, in 2004.
NCLD's Get Ready to Read!NCLD has reached 40,000 parents and professionals via electronic newsletters and action alerts and distributed 3 million pages of NCLD-authored resource information on learning disabilities, early literacy, and advocacy each year.
NCLD successfully lobbied for new language in the IDEA legislation, which was passed in 2004. Due to NCLD's efforts, IDEA now, for the first time, promotes early intervention for students who are struggling in school and ensures that students with learning disabilities are identified sooner and more accurately.
NCLD successfully lobbied for early literacy screening language in the "No Child Left Behind" law, which was passed in 2001.
NCLD increased its annual funding for programs from $222,000 in FY 00 to more than $1 million in FY 02 and 03.
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